Mirca Madianou's "Technocolonialism: When Technology for Good is Harmful" explores the detrimental effects of digital technologies within humanitarian aid. The book examines how technological advancements, particularly AI and data practices, exacerbate existing power imbalances and create new forms of structural violence. Madianou introduces the concept of 'technocolonialism' to highlight the convergence of digital innovations with humanitarian bureaucracies, state power, and market forces, perpetuating colonial legacies. The research draws on extensive fieldwork and interviews, revealing how data collection and AI applications often marginalize affected communities. The book ultimately calls for a critical re-evaluation of technology's role in humanitarian aid, advocating for more equitable and ethical practices.
With over 300 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, and with emergencies and climate disasters becoming more common, AI and big data are being championed as forces for good and as solutions to the complex challenges of the aid sector.
Technocolonialism: When Technology for Good is Harmful (Polity, 2024) argues, however, that digital innovation engenders new forms of violence and entrenches power asymmetries between the global South and North. Dr. Madianou develops a new concept, technocolonialism, to capture how the convergence of digital developments with humanitarian structures, state power and market forces reinvigorates and reshapes colonial legacies. The concept of technocolonialism shifts the attention to the constitutive role that digital infrastructures, data and AI play in accentuating inequities between aid providers and people in need.
Drawing on ten years of research on the uses of digital technologies in humanitarian operations, Dr. Mirca Madianou examines a range of practices: from the normalization of biometric technologies and the datafication of humanitarian operations to experimentation in refugee camps, which are treated as laboratories for technological pilots. In so doing, the book opens new ground in the fields of humanitarianism and critical AI studies, and in the debates in postcolonial studies, by highlighting the fundamental role of digital technologies in reworking colonial genealogies.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
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New Books in Science, Technology, and Society